A good product can still miss a market. The buyer on the other side of the world can’t read the brochure, doesn’t know the brand and has no reason yet to trust the seller. Anyone who has tried to sell overseas knows this. Language, information and trust are often harder to cross than distance.
That problem sits at the centre of a new move by 10 CENTS CAPITAL, a Malaysian investment holding company. It has completed US$20 million in funding and is putting it into three new lines of business: AI business applications, global multilingual marketing and cross-border B2B trade. Its first priority market is Brazil.
Who is 10 CENTS CAPITAL?
10 CENTS CAPITAL SDN. BHD. was incorporated in Malaysia on 18 July 2022. Its areas of interest are digital technology, e-commerce, consumer services and enterprise services. It supports businesses with capital investment, strategic support and resource connections, and its own short summary is “Clear Direction. Lasting Value.”
The new lines add something different: services that help businesses reach buyers abroad.
Why now?
Two numbers explain the timing.
The first is about AI. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) projects that the global AI market will grow from US$189 billion in 2023 to US$4.8 trillion in 2033. AI is fast becoming an everyday business tool, and it lets a small team handle market research and communication in several languages.
The second is about trade moving online. The US International Trade Administration (ITA) forecasts that global B2B e-commerce will reach US$36 trillion by 2026, growing at 14.5% a year. The ITA also expects more of that growth to come from smaller markets, including Latin America.
Malaysia has a strong base to build on. MATRADE figures show the country’s total trade passed RM3 trillion for the first time in 2025, reaching RM3.061 trillion, up 6.3%.
The three engines
AI business applications. 10 CENTS CAPITAL will use AI in four parts of the work: customer research, marketing content, language adaptation and organising business information.
Global multilingual marketing. It will produce content in multiple languages for overseas markets, presenting brands and products clearly and adapting each version to a market’s language, habits and buyer needs. The goal is simple: a local buyer should understand the product on first contact.
A team around a conference table joins a video call shown on a laptop screen.
Cross-border B2B trade. This starts with identifying target customers and organising product and supply information. From there, it connects buyers and partners and supports quotations and negotiation.
On their own, each of these is useful. Together, they cover the path from “who should I sell to?” to “let’s talk price”.
Where the US$20 million goes
The funding has three jobs:
- Technology and service preparation: using AI for customer research, marketing content and language adaptation, and building the technical and service base for the new business.
- Building the cross-border B2B business: customer research, compiling supplier and buyer information, connecting partners, and supporting enquiries and negotiation.
- Overseas market development: starting with Brazil, covering market entry and business connections.
As the parent company, 10 CENTS CAPITAL handles funding arrangements, strategic planning and the coordination of business resources. Strategic planning sets the order of markets and the business priorities. Resource coordination puts the connections it has built through its investment work to use in growing a network of customers and partners.
Why Brazil first?
Brazil may sound far away, but the trade link is already real. In 2024, total trade between Malaysia and Brazil rose 16.6% to over US$4.46 billion, and Brazil remained Malaysia’s second-largest trading partner in Latin America, as Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister noted at the Malaysia–Brazil Business Summit in October 2025.
Malaysia sends electrical and electronic products, palm oil, rubber and halal pharmaceuticals. It brings in ores, processed food and petroleum products.
In Brazil, 10 CENTS CAPITAL will start with customer research, market entry, localisation and building business connections.
From capital to capability
This is what makes the move worth watching. An investment holding company usually brings money and advice. Here, 10 CENTS CAPITAL is pairing capital with technology and market access, so the support a business gets can include finding its first overseas buyers.
For Malaysian businesses thinking about selling overseas, this is the gap that often holds them back. Plenty have a product good enough to sell abroad. Fewer have the language, the information and the contacts to do it.
That’s the bet behind the three new engines: good products reaching the buyers they were made for, starting in Brazil.
